The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

Republican propaganda during the civil war always emphasized that its government was the legally appointed one after the elections of February 1936. This is true, but one also has to pose an important question. If the coalition of the right had won those elections, would the left have accepted the legitimate result? One strongly suspects not. The socialist leader Largo Caballero threatened openly before the elections that if the right won, it would be open civil war.

The nationalists tried from the very beginning to pretend that they had risen in revolt purely to forestall a communist putsch. This was a complete fabrication to provide retrospective justification for their acts. But for the left to claim that the nationalists had launched an unprovoked attack against law-abiding democrats is disingenuous. The left had often shown as little respect for the democratic process and the rule of law as the right. Both sides, of course, justified their actions on the grounds that if they did not act first, their opponents would seize power and crush them. But this only goes to show that nothing destroys the centre ground more rapidly than the politics of fear and the rhetoric of threat.

Some argue that words cannot kill. But this becomes less and less convincing the more one looks at the cycle of mutual suspicion and hatred, all enflamed by irresponsible declamation. In fact, the right-wing leader Calvo Sotelo was assassinated because of his own deliberately provocative speeches in the Cortes. It is also important to consider whether the rhetoric of annihilation tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. General Queipo de Llano threatened in one of his notorious broadcasts from Seville that the nationalists would execute ten republicans for every one of their own men killed. This proved in the end to be not that far from the mark.

One must also not forget Largo Caballero’s declaration that he wanted a Republic without class warfare, but to achieve that a political class had to disappear. This was an obvious echo of Lenin’s openly stated intention to eliminate the bourgeoisie. But would a victory of the left in say 1937 or 1938 have led to a comparable scale of executions and imprisonment as under Franco? It is, of course, impossible to tell, and one cannot judge entirely by the Russian civil war, but it is still a question which must not be brushed aside. The winner in any civil war, as several historians have argued, is bound to kill more because of the cycle of fear and hate.

All these complex and interrelated issues show how it is impossible to separate cause and effect with scientific precision. Truth was indeed the first casualty of the Spanish Civil War. The subject has suffered from more intense debate and more polemics for longer after the event than any other modern conflict, including even the Second World War. The historian, although obviously unable to be completely dispassionate, should try to do little more than understand the feelings of both sides, to probe previous assumptions and to push forward the boundaries of knowledge. As far as is humanly possible, moral judgements should be left to the individual reader.

POLITICAL PARTIES, GROUPINGS AND ORGANIZATIONS

NATIONALISTS

MONARCHIST (ALFONSINE)

Acción Española

Renovación Española

The Alfonsine monarchists supported the descendants of Queen Isabella II, the daughter of Ferdinand VII, as opposed to those of his brother, Don Carlos. Thus the monarchists in the twentieth century were those who backed King Alfonso XIII and then his son, Don Juan, the Count of Barcelona and the father of the present King Juan Carlos. The monarchist faction was strong among conservative army officers and it saw itself as the natural leadership for ‘Old Spain’. Popular support was marginal.

CARLIST

Communión Tradicionalista

Requetés (the Carlist militia)

Pelayos (Carlist youth movement)

Margaritas (Carlist women’s service)

The Carlists supported the rival Borbón line of Don Carlos, and stood for the idea of a traditionalist ultra-Catholic monarchy as opposed to Alfonsine monarchism, which they felt had been corrupted by nineteenth-century liberalism. The leadership, particularly the Count of Rodezno, tended to be court-orientated, while the base of mainly Navarrese smallholders was populist.

FALANGE

Falange Española de las JONS

Flechas (Falangist youth movement)

Auxilio Social (Falangist women’s service)